‘Tech City, YearOfCode, prove me wrong, give us something we can weigh. How many fresh developers have you produced this year?' Photograph: Sam Frost

The tech sector is outstripping the rest of the UK economy. This is excellent. It's also very lucky. Look into the bowels of every successful technology company in Britain and you'll find rooms full of computer programmers – "developers" – writing the code that keeps the whole company afloat. They are fundamental: the lifeblood – without them, there is no tech sector.

And yet none of them learned their skills in school. The vast majority have taught themselves: the government had nothing to do with it. Decades of woefully inadequate information and communications technology curriculums in secondary schools have left academia perpetually five years (at least) behind the workplace, and they're only now trying to make up the ground. By the time kids are filling out Ucas forms or heading off to find a living, "computer stuff" has usually been relegated to the otherworldly realm of nerds. A tragedy.

If – a big if – the laudable new ICT curriculum (due to start this September) works, in roughly seven years' time we'll be in great shape, as a new generation of properly tech-ready kids graduate into the industry.

But until then, we have a big problem: vast, growing technological demand, and paltry supply.

Every week I meet a wannabe entrepreneur with an idea and a problem. The problem is always the same: they either can't find or afford a developer to build their idea and work out if it's any good. Further up the tree, the same problem, writ large – top developers are too scarce, and too expensive. Developers know how rare they are, so up go the day rates.

We need more developers in the workplace, now. But what is the government doing about it?

Well, there's Tech City. Tech City "supports the growth of the technology cluster in east London", which is nice. Awesome supporting guys! Also, there's the what-the-hell-is-it quango Year of Code, which launched in February backed by an army of well-connected advisers, bravely aiming to "celebrate technology" and "encourage people to start learning code". Since its launch, barely a squeak.

In sum, the government is: "supporting", "celebrating", and "encouraging". I'll translate: nothing.

I've had this hunch for a while, but having been in the industry for two years, I'm now convinced. Please, Tech City, Year of Code, prove me wrong, give us something we can weigh. Beyond the PR and photo-ops, are there any numbers? How many fresh developers have you produced this year?

Annoyingly, the solution is right under the government's nose. Where they have failed, the market has responded. Across London, organisations such as General Assembly, Makers Academy, and Steer (full disclosure: I once wrote copy for Steer in return for coding tutorials) are already churning out thousands of entry-level developers and tech-literate converts every month. They spotted a gap: bored Britons wanting to migrate into the tech sector, without the skills to do so, but a willingness to pay (quite a lot) to learn them.

I know this because I was one of them. Two years ago I had an idea for a startup, but didn't know how to build it. So I learned to code by paying for night classes, built the software, raised investment, hired a team, and now have thousands of users across the world. It's early days, but it's exactly what the government wants young entrepreneurs to do. And yet "Tech City" had nothing to do with it. The private code schools did.

So, dear government, until the wave of new techies graduate through the system, stop blowing hot air and actually do something about the real, current problem. Two suggestions:

1. Subsidise the code schools. Take all the money you're putting in to Tech City and Year of Code, double it, and give the existing, successful schools scope to multiply across the country with vastly slashed rates. Or, failing that, put this money out to tender – who will deliver the most new developers, quickest?

2. Use your influence in big business – we know you've got it – to push corporate marketing budgets towards doing the same. The tech scene is hot, so get them in on it. Imagine: "Barclays offers 10,000 learn-to-code scholarships across the UK, because they're just so goddam down with the tech kids!" "Virgin ditches ad campaign, instead teaches 50,000 teenagers how to code because they know how much kids luv trainz!". Everyone wins. Big business gets great PR and gets in on the tech rush, the tech sector gets a much-needed injection of fresh talent, and the taxpayer pays nothing. Woohoo!

In short: it's time to get real. Tech City and Year of Code may be lovely and shiny, but we need to move beyond the PR guff.

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